Nikki looks out over the edge of the roof. She can see the cars and the people at the bottom. They look so small and innocent it makes her disgusted. Nobody is innocent. They can act innocent, but betrayal hides in their shadows. Waiting.

She laughs darkly to herself. She finds it ironic that she is doing the same by sitting in the darkness on a roof top. Just waiting.

The sky is dark blue with the sun setting against it. Only an hour left before she is off dancing with death. She leaps from one rooftop to the next in the concealing blackness of night. She had never told anyone what she was about to do. Nobody had any idea of what she really was. Only fifteen years old and she had committed more murders and crimes than all of the Deadly Vipers put together.

The first to die was her father. He came home and found her mother dead in the kitchen. He cried over her body for hours while Nikki sat in the living room. She had cut her foot on the broken glass and had drawn patterns with her blood. She was only four years old at the time. She grew up from that moment on. She had never been a child. She had turned into something more.

At her 6th birthday party she had walked in on her father in his bedroom. She was going to ask if it was time to open presents when she saw him with another woman. Bare ass naked and fucking like animals on his bed, Nikki cracked the door and watched. She was horrified as her father betrayed her mother like that. Moans, cries, and screams of pleasure smacked her in the face. Nikki couldn't believe what she was witnessing. When their assaulting noises died down, she snuck away and went back out to her party. No one had any idea of what she was planning.

That night, she had replayed the images of her father with that woman, until they diseased her mind. Nobody was going to disrespect her mother like that. They would have to pay for their actions.

After everyone had left the party and Nikki was in bed, her father went into her room. But he didn't notice the knife, the knife identical to the one that had been inside her mother and inside his wife, behind her back. As he bent to give Nikki a kiss goodnight, she gripped the knife and plunged it into the side of his throat. He collapsed on her bed with his wide eyes on her. Her bed seemed a little too comfortable for him. He didn't deserve to die in comfort. She shoved his body onto the floor and watched his life source seep out of his artery in red rivers. That was her first kill. And like her mother, she would live to kill.

Nikki trained herself to fight. After she had killed the slut that had slept with her now dead father, she decided to fight assassins. Assassin after assassin, bloodshed after bloodshed Nikki rose victorious. She grew stronger, stealthier, and angrier with each kill. She yearned for them to be Beatrix. She wanted Beatrix to be the one to beg for mercy. She wanted Beatrix's blood to stain her clothes. She wanted Beatrix to get the ending that her mother had sought for her in the beginning. The bitch didn't die when she was supposed to. Now she was going to pay for two lives.

Never really understanding what Beatrix had meant when she had told Nikki that if she ever wanted to avenge her mother's death she would be waiting for her. Nikki never even dreamed of actually taking her up on the offer. Now Nikki couldn't wait to get her hands on her. She had planned how she would be ending Beatrix's life since the day she had killed her father. The urge to kill grew indefinitely after that. As with each murder she committed she became more creative. More of her victims were tortured and more of their screams lasted longer.

Nikki had contemplated the idea that maybe she had a problem. Maybe she was so obsessed with getting her revenge that it was unhealthy. Maybe but no matter what she did, she couldn't shake the image of her mother's body lying lifeless. Cereal had been coating the floor in the kitchen, glass in the living room, blood by her body, and the murderer talked to Nikki about revenge before leaving on her plan for revenge.

The cereal by her mother had been for Nikki. It was a tradition that after school her mom would bring some cereal to her and they would work together on her homework. Now Nikki couldn't even stand to see a box of cereal. When she was eleven she got kicked out of the grocery store for destroying all their cereal. She had kicked, screamed, and punched all the cereal off their shelves before a manager had grabbed her and thrown her out. Of course the next day they had to hire a new manager because their last one turned up dead. He had 'fallen' in his bedroom and hit the mirror causing a big shard to enter his brain.

Nikki remembers wishing he was Beatrix too. At the thought, Nikki runs toward the end of the roof and jumps to the other. It's easily a 100 story drop but Nikki pays no attention. She has one thing on her mind and that blurs out everything else. While her mind wanders on the adrenaline of murdering, she focuses her senses on nothing but the cold air that caresses her as she jumps from rooftop to rooftop. She breathes in the scent of the refreshing air. Below, it smells of gasoline and dumpsters. Here the air is unpolluted. Untainted by the souls that cannot reach the rooftops.

She feels free. The chains that weigh heavy on her heart and mind of the change in her life are loosened by the tiniest fraction of an inch. The space allows her lungs to expand and her heart to beat more freely. Her brown hair falls to her shoulders in little curls that bounce around with her every move. Her black shirt hangs low and her pants hug her every curve. She always dressed provocatively. Whenever a man came onto her, she played around. She would be mysterious and gain his attention. Once he was intrigued, she would take him to a deserted place and the game would take a turn for the fun. She wouldn't give them what they wanted. She would tease them.

"Oh yeah." One of them had moaned against her lips as he pushed her back against the wall. He cupped her breast with one hand and with the other held her wrists above her head. They were in the back of an empty alley way. The exact place that Nikki had wanted them to be. The man rubbed his hand down her side, down to the edge of her skirt. He traced his hand lightly up her inner thigh. Then reached down and started unbuttoning his pants. That's when Nikki's game turned deadly.

She loosened one of her hands out of his hold and grabbed his throat. When he couldn't breathe, he let go of her other hand and stopped touching his pants. Nikki kissed him one last time, the seal of his death.

She remembered laughing at the man's face. He had looked so scared and shocked she almost wanted to take a picture. But of course she couldn't do that. Any evidence of her would lead the police on her trail and she would be sent to an orphanage. She had run all the way from the Bronx to get away from that kind of thing.

She remembered telling the man, "You know child molesting a serious offense in this part of town." She tsk-ed tsk-ed at him and crushed his throat harder, lifting him off the ground. She grabbed the long knife that she hid in her boot and plunged it into his gut. "Every law has to be enforced one way or another." She whispered into his ear and pulled the knife out. The man fell back to the ground and bled out.

Two weeks later she read the article in the paper.

Drunk Partier found dead in an alley way.

…He had a 6 inch stab wound near his stomach and tests revealed he was drunk over legal limit. Near the alleyway, authorities found a homeless man concealing the murder weapon. Prints matched the man and the blood on the knife matched the victim. Authorities say they cannot know for sure whether the suspect really did kill this man but evidence claims that the story is just that. They brought the suspect in for questioning where they, "…questioned him but found they couldn't get a single answer from him." Police Chief Robertson says that the man is a mute. Police are keeping him held in prison until the judge can look over the case. Authorities say they are confident that the man will be in prison for a long time.

As much as Nikki hopes that she will get a surprise attack on Black Mamba, she knows that by now her cover is probably blown.

She runs slower to the edge of the last rooftop. When she reaches the edge, she drops down and lands smoothly on her feet. She fixes her shirt and pulls on her beanie. No one is looking for her or even knows who she is. She wants it to stay that way.

As she walks to the train station, she hears light footsteps falling behind her. Acting on instincts she pulls out her 9mm Pistol with the silencer and holds it to the face behind her. When she turns, all she sees is an empty street. She looks around trying to see if she's missing something.

"A little paranoid, are we?" A voice sounded right in her ear that the person's breath raises goose-bumps on her arms. The person then grabs her arms and pulls them back, pinning her. Cold lips run down her neck. This must be it, she figures, I'm going to die.

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